From lines on a drawing board to a fully-fledged development, the finest types of residential projects are those that are accepted by the people who live in them, but you can’t just create houses and roads and expect a community to spring up in their place.
So how do you create community in new developments? For Frasers Property Australia Senior Community Development Manager David Mazzotta, the process is rapidly changing from a ‘design and defend’ mindset, to one of active community engagement and participation.
“Perhaps developers didn’t see it as an opportunity or something that was going to add value,” he said.
“When there is something happening on the doorstep of a community that is going to profoundly impact the way they live their life, people feel entitled to be able to have a say about what’s going on — and I don’t think communities historically felt that that was the case.
“The capability and professionalism around urban planning on the urban fringe by some councils since the 90s, and also taken up by state governments in more recent times, has increased the expectation on developers to be an active participant in the creation of communities.”
Mazzotta said as more developers have started to put the community at the forefront of design, it is leading to an industry-wide change where developers seek to differentiate their product to create unique selling points.
“I think where we are up to now, is that we’ve got developers starting to realise that by bringing amenity on early, it helps community feel like they belong,” he said.
As an example, Mazzotta said one development from Frasers Property is going to see a school built before people have even landed, a process that normally takes 5-10 years.
“To have a school there before you have even built the first home is an amazing opportunity for people and a great community builder,” he said.
Working with local councils to bring amenities online earlier is vital, according to Mazzotta. One avenue to work with council is through works in kind.
“Quite often developers can build infrastructure cheaper than what government can,” he said.
“Developers can deliver things in advance through the development contribution mechanism that they would otherwise have to pay, but instead do the works in kind.
“The multiple benefits include council getting it earlier, in a more cost effective way and the people that are living there, get the amenity earlier.”
Mazzotta said many developers have changed to become more sophisticated in building communities and are now factoring in these considerations early on in the feasibility modelling of new developments.
This has led to the value of amenity being earmarked in the precinct structure plan process, as well as costs associated with community engagement and community development.
“It’s how you do this that determines success,” he said.
Mazzotta said to do this, developers need to understand what a community wants and what their connection to place is. One way Frasers Property does this is to simply ask them.
The work of Frasers Property Australia and Irongate Group at the 24-hectare Bradmill cotton factory urban redevelopment in Yarraville, Melbourne, has taken this approach to heart.
“The community engagement approach we’ve taken has been to understand Yarraville, to understand Bradmill’s place, and to understand people’s connection to Bradmill, to understand that migrant story and the different community’s place in that site’s cultural heritage.”
“The Bradmill site since the early fifties has provided employment for generations of local people. A lot of Greek families worked there; a lot of other migrant families worked there,” Mazzotta says.
“It means a lot to young people that live nearby now, and it also means a lot to people that are ol
der, that went to school nearby, whose parents may have worked there, or whose grandparents may have worked there.”
Frasers is incorporating the essence of those stories into the urban design and architecture, such as with historical street names, public art and built form.
“I’m hoping that connection with the site will engender people to go there and to visit, perhaps even to buy there and to continue that sense of connection and ownership over it.”
Mazzotta said to really build a new development with the community in mind, you must understand the hearts and minds of prospective buyers and drill down to what is meaningful to them and what they consider valuable.
“Once you have done this, you get a pretty good picture of what that community is going to be,” he said.
Content repurposed from realestate.com.au’s article The revolution in how new communities are made